Word geekery: Something I've always wondered:

[capri0mni]

How did the meaning of the English word "Nut" evolve from: "a hard, indehiscent, one-seeded fruit, as the chestnut or the acorn" to: "a foolish, silly, or eccentric person"?

Did the word somehow get filtered through the word "Squirelly"?

'Cause I can understand how "Boy, he's sure a squirrelly fellow, ain't he?" can mean "he's a foolish, silly person," because squirrels (from our p.o.v) seem to run every which way in a nervous, nonsensical fashion. And squirrels are associated with nuts.

Or is it that "nut" is also a slang term for "head?"

Anyway.

I'm wondering this because the other night, I found I'm a Nut, by Leroy Pullens (1966), on YouTube. And it's been running through my head ever since*:

[Chorus]
I'm a nut, I'm a nut
My life don't ever get in a rut, whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop
The head on my shoulders is sorta loose
And I ain't got the sense God gave a goose
Lord, I ain't crazy, but ...I'm a nut

Is is wetter under water, if you're there when it rains?
Is it shorter to New York, than it is by a plane?
Between myself and I, I wonder who's the dumber
Is it hotter down south, than it is in the summer?


*help me! -- If you dare, here's a vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYu7gnLo688. Most vids of this song are just slide shows of semi-related Google hits. But this one actually shows four women line dancing to this song, so it actually has a modicum of creativity and effort.

Comments

[pebblerocker]

From the "head" meaning, I would think. In New Zealand I would hear just "nut" on its own very rarely compared to either "nutter" or "nutcase"*, though people can "be nuts" (as an adjective) or "go nuts".

*I always used to imagine some sort of carrying or storage container for nuts, but I imagine "nutcase" would mean someone who was, or ought to be, diagnosed with the clinical condition of being nuts/a nutter. (That all this is derogatory and immensely hurtful goes without saying.)

[capri0mni]

*nods*

I think you're right. Especially since I've learned, since posting this, that the term "Squirrelly" didn't show up as a descriptor for personality until 1934.

"Nut" in this sense is probably much older.

...But much newer than these lines from As You Like It:* "The sweetest nut hath sourest rind / Such a nut is Rosilind" (deliberate spoof of love poetry). The character speaking those lines (court jester) wasn't teasing Rosilind for being foolish, but being an ugly-but-sweet girl. Still, growing up 400 years later, I always hear the "you're silly!" implication there, even if Shakespeare didn't mean it.

Though actually, a nut is a very good metaphor for head, since a brain in the skull is like the nutmeat in a shell (and walnuts even look like brains).

And by my late childhood, "nut" almost became a term of affection -- someone who is silly, more than crazy in the clinical sense. Though that insult is still there, too. All depends on the tone of voice in which it's said, I guess.

*circa 1600